In the drawing-in machine USTER DELTA (USTER being a registered trademark of Zellweger Uster AG) described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,681,825, the selected warp threads are presented by first being laterally deflected in the plane of the warp-thread layer and then being pressed by a finger-like member into a position in which they are received by the drawing-in member. This finger-like member is adjustable in stroke in the longitudinal direction of the warp threads. In this arrangement, the thread is held at its cut-off top end by a clamp. During the presentation, the thread is clamped between its bottom end, held by a clamping rail of the drawing-in frame, and its top end, held by the said clamp. The finger-like member presses laterally against the clamped thread and slides along the latter.
As soon as the drawing-in member, formed by a hook, has taken hold of the thread presented to it, the top clamp opens and the thread falls downwards in an uncontrolled manner. At the same time, the thread is drawn in, the drawing-in taking place as a so-called "loop drawing-in".
For several reasons, this known type of thread presentation is in need of improvement. On the one hand, the positioning of the thread in the receiving position by the finger-like member sliding along the thread is not very gentle on the thread and can possibly lead to breaking of the thread. Then the thread falling downwards in an uncontrolled manner can get caught, which would likewise lead to a fault. Finally, since a plurality of threads cannot of course fall downwards at the same time, the drawing-in frequency and thus the working speed of the drawing-in machine are limited.